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2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings & Ratings

November 4, 2017 - by David Hess

One of our 2017 New Years resolutions (along with cutting down on sweets, and taking more “walking meetings”) was to post our 2017 college basketball preseason rankings earlier this year. And … we’ve technically stuck to that one. Last year we got these up the Saturday before the season tipped off. This year they’re up on Friday!

Who Is #1?

Last year, Duke was the obvious preseason favorite. This year, a great case could be made for a few different teams:

Duke has one of the best recruiting classes of all time (more on this below), and a Hall of Fame coach

Arizona finished last season strong, returns preseason All-American Allonzo Trier, has a very good recruiting class by normal standards, and adds one of the more valuable 2017-18 transfers (Dylan Smith)

Wichita State brings essentially everybody back from a team that played like a top 5 team down the stretch last season. The Shockers have a combination of previous-season rating and returning production equaled by only one team in recent memory — the 2008-09 North Carolina team that won the national title. (Of course, that UNC team also featured a better class of incoming recruits than does this WSU team.)

For our preseason projections, we rate them in the order listed above, with Duke as the #1 team. But there’s only a 0.6-point gap between #1 Duke and #4 Michigan State — meaning we’d favor Duke over Michigan State on a neutral court by less than a point. It’s essentially a 4-way toss up at the top.

Duke’s Great Recruiting Class

Some of you may be surprised with Duke’s high ranking, given all the talent and production they’ve lost from last season. They’re one of only 9 teams returning less than 20% of both their offensive and defensive production from last season. The others are Kentucky, Oregon, California, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, North Florida, Pepperdine, and Mississippi Valley State.

Of course, that number is mitigated by a couple factors:

A) That returning talent includes Grayson Allen.

B) They have the second best recruiting class in our database (which goes back to the 1998-99 season).

While not without hiccups, the overall performance of the other top rated classes has been very good:

#1: 2011-12 Kentucky … 38-2, national champs
#2: 2017-18 Duke … ???
#3: 2013-14 Kentucky … only an 8 seed, but lost in the title game
#4: 2013-14 Kansas … upset by Stanford in the second round … but they were missing Joel Embiid to injury, and obviously wouldn’t have been the #4 class without him
#5: 2014-15 Duke … 35-4, national champs
#6: 2016-17 Duke … upset in second round … 3 of the 4 main freshman missed several games, disappointing season overall, but still a #2 seed
#7: 2006-07 Ohio State … 35-4, lost in title game to Florida, which was one of the greatest teams in recent history
#8: 2005-06 Duke … 32-4, #1 seed, upset in Sweet 6
#9: 2009-10 Kentucky … 35-2, #1 seed, lost in Elite 8
#10: 2012-13 UCLA … 25-10, lost in first round

If Duke had actually returned a core of solid rotation players from last season, and added this class, they’d be the clear title favorite. As it stands, they’re still our #1, but by just a hair.

2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings Method

To create our preseason rankings, we first establish a baseline prediction for a team, given their power ratings from recent years, and assuming an average amount of roster turnover. Then we make some adjustments based on how much value each team is returning on offense and defense, as well as the strength of their recruiting classes from the past few years, and the value of any transfers they’ve added this season. The result is our 2017 college basketball preseason rankings. For a more complete description, check out our blog post from four years ago.

As always, we’ve refit the model during the offseason, in order to take into account another year of data.

What Do We Use Them For?

The resulting ratings drive our preseason projections, and they serve as the Bayesian priors for our predictive ratings as the season progresses. (Translation: our preseason ratings still impact our team ratings even months into the season, because that has shown to be more predictive than not.)

Below you’ll find a preseason top 25 comparison between TeamRankings, Ken Pomeroy, Dan Hanner/Sports Illustrated, the AP poll, and the ESPN Coaches poll. And at the end of the post you’ll see the full rankings and ratings for all 351 Division I teams.

Using these ratings, we’ve run full season projections, which are live on the site now. Go check’em out! Pages include:

NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions. Round by round advancement odds, including probability of a team making the Sweet 16, making the Final Four, and winning the championship.

This is all data-driven, and automated, so it will update every day throughout the season.

Ratings Accuracy

Before we get to the 2017 college basketball preseason rankings themselves, it’s worth noting that Ken Pomeroy and Dan Hanner have compared our preseason ratings and/or projections with other stat-based prognosticators in past years. Our finish has been consistently good, though also consistently a bit behind Dan Hanner’s bottom-up, player-based projections. (Links below go to the comparison blog posts from Ken and Dan.)

Taking a few years of data into account, we feel we probably have the second best preseason ratings, behind Dan Hanner’s player lineup based projections, but ahead of Ken Pomeroy, ESPN, and human rankings.

We say this not to brag, but to try to preemptively defend ourselves against the inevitable “Team X is WAY too high/low! You don’t know what you’re doing!” comments. While these are by no means perfect rankings, the projections they drive have held their own in comparisons with other top projection systems. We expect them to do so again this season. We’re going to get plenty of individual teams wrong, but that’s inevitable when the challenge is to project 351 teams.

Preseason Top 25 Comparison

Let’s take a look at all the teams that made it into at least one preseason top 25 from among this group:

The table below lists all such teams, and shows the preseason rank in each system. It also shows the average rank, and a column indicating how far TR is from the consensus. (Positive numbers mean we project a team to rank better than the consensus, and negative is the reverse.) For teams receiving no votes in the polls, we used a rank of 50. Teams are listed in ascending order by average rank.

Team

TR

KP

SI

BT

BPI

AP

Coach

AVG

Arizona

2

3

1

2

11

3

5

3.9

Duke

1

6

3

4

14

1

1

4.3

Wichita St.

3

4

4

3

1

7

8

4.3

Michigan St.

4

10

2

1

13

2

2

4.9

Villanova

5

1

5

9

2

6

6

4.9

Kansas

7

5

7

6

3

4

3

5.0

Florida

6

8

10

7

10

8

7

8.0

Kentucky

8

2

8

12

19

5

4

8.3

Cincinnati

10

11

6

8

6

12

13

9.4

West Virginia

9

7

11

10

12

11

10

10.0

North Carolina

12

13

18

17

7

9

9

12.1

Purdue

11

17

17

11

4

20

21

14.4

Louisville

13

16

9

14

31

16

16

16.4

Xavier

15

26

15

13

15

17

17

16.9

Virginia

14

9

30

5

8

27

27

17.1

Notre Dame

18

22

16

31

9

14

14

17.7

Miami FL

21

27

12

22

18

13

12

17.9

USC

19

12

13

20

42

10

11

18.1

Saint Mary's

17

30

14

15

16

22

22

19.4

Baylor

16

19

19

29

17

24

24

21.1

Gonzaga

20

20

23

26

24

18

19

21.4

TCU

24

14

24

25

5

29

30

21.6

Seton Hall

23

28

25

21

26

23

23

24.1

Northwestern

30

18

22

34

29

19

20

24.6

Minnesota

22

36

26

40

21

15

15

25.0

Alabama

26

23

21

28

30

26

25

25.6

Texas A&M

32

15

29

19

38

25

26

26.3

Providence

25

25

36

35

27

30

33

30.1

UCLA

29

29

20

69

52

21

18

34.0

Oklahoma

36

21

40

33

37

36

35

34.0

Texas

28

37

44

24

51

35

37

36.6

Iowa State

37

34

50

38

20

50

50

39.9

Auburn

60

46

33

16

34

50

50

41.3

Texas Tech

52

33

43

41

22

50

50

41.6

Missouri

46

81

39

23

53

31

29

43.1

SMU

39

24

63

74

35

43

41

45.6

Virginia Tech

65

53

42

67

23

32

39

45.9

Vanderbilt

40

38

59

70

25

50

50

47.4

San Diego St.

62

71

47

18

105

50

50

57.6

Preseason Top 25 Comparison Highlights

There are two top tiers of 3 teams each that are ahead of the pack, based on the consensus averages. The 3 teams in the top tier (Arizona, Duke, and Wichita State) all have an average rank of about 4. The 3 teams in the second tier (Michigan State, Villanova, and Kansas) all have an average rank of about 5. After that the average rank drops all the way down to 8 (Florida and Kentucky), 9 (Cincinnati), and 10 (West Virginia).

TeamRankings is the only “computer” ranking with Duke at #1, agreeing with the human voters. BPI, on the other hand, doesn’t even see Duke as a Top 10 team.

The computers all rank Wichita State higher than the humans. The Shockers are an interesting case. They probably don’t have as high of a ceiling as, say, Duke. But they have an extremely high floor. There are very few unknowns with this year’s WSU team. Because most analytical projections are designed to forecast the average rating they expect a team to have if the season is played out millions of times, that high floor boosts the Shockers’ rating. AP Poll an Coaches Poll voters, on the other hand, are probably paying a bit more attention to ceilings, and less to floors.

BPI has some very big outliers in their Top 10. BPI has the most optimistic projection by far for Purdue (BPI #4, average #14) and TCU (BPI #5, average #22). They’re also at least 5 spots higher than the consensus on North Carolina, Virginia, and Notre Dame. BPI is also the only ranking not to have Arizona, Duke, or Michigan State in the top 10.

Compared to the crowd, we’re most pessimistic about Auburn, who we rank 10 to 44 spots lower than other projections. We suspect this may be due to our ranking being published later than the others, though. Key players Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy have been caught up in the ongoing FBI investigation into NCAA corruption, and are temporarily suspended. We’re treating them as if they’ll miss the season, while other rankings may be assuming they’ll play.

Among teams not at the center of a FBI investigation, we’re most pessimistic about Virginia Tech (19 spots lower than the average), Texas Tech (10), Texas A&M (6), Northwestern (5), and San Diego State (4).

On the other hand, we’re more optimistic about Texas (9 spots higher than the average), Vanderbilt (7), SMU (7), Baylor (5), Providence (5), and UCLA (5). The common thread among several of these these teams seems to be that they are losing very visible, key pieces this year. We’re projecting they won’t take giant steps back, and will be able to at least partly make up for the lost production.

Full 2017 College Basketball Preseason Rankings & Ratings, From #1 To #351

Below are our full 2017 college basketball preseason rankings.

Keep in mind that sometimes teams can be separated by several ranking spots, but have nearly identical ratings. On the flip side of the coin, two teams can be ranked adjacent to each other, but can have a big ratings gap.

Let’s look at the top of the rankings this season for an example. #5 Villanova and #6 Florida are separated by 0.9 ratings points. That’s the same as the difference between Florida and #11 Purdue.

And a 0.9-point gap isn’t huge to begin with. Given the tight bunching at the top of these ratings, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see one of our top four teams finish the season outside the top 10, or for a team in the bottom half of the top 10 end the season ranked #1. That’s why they play the games!

***UPDATE***

After we posted this article, but before the season started, we made a couple adjustments based on late breaking college basketball news. We are leaving the table below unchanged, but the following changes have been made to the ratings on our site (and are reflected in our season projections):

USC: DeAnthony Melton is reportedly being held out of scrimmages due to eligibility concerns related to the FBI investigation (2 point penalty, moving them from #19 to #29).

UCLA: 3 freshmen have been arrested for shoplifting in China, and may miss part of the season (0.5 point penalty, moving them from #29 to #34).

***END UPDATE***

Rank

Team

Rating

1

Duke

19.5

2

Arizona

19.4

3

Wichita St

19.2

4

Michigan St

18.9

5

Villanova

18.3

6

Florida

17.4

7

Kansas

17.2

8

Kentucky

17.0

9

W Virginia

16.8

10

Cincinnati

16.6

11

Purdue

16.5

12

N Carolina

16.3

13

Louisville

15.7

14

Virginia

15.2

15

Xavier

15.1

16

Baylor

14.8

17

St Marys

14.8

18

Notre Dame

14.6

19

USC

14.5

20

Gonzaga

14.4

21

Miami (FL)

14.4

22

Minnesota

14.3

23

Seton Hall

14.3

24

TX Christian

14.1

25

Providence

14.0

26

Alabama

13.5

27

Oregon

13.1

28

Texas

12.9

29

UCLA

12.7

30

Northwestern

12.6

31

Wisconsin

12.5

32

Texas A&M

12.3

33

Butler

12.3

34

Creighton

12.2

35

Michigan

12.1

36

Oklahoma

11.8

37

Iowa State

11.8

38

Iowa

11.8

39

S Methodist

11.8

40

Vanderbilt

11.7

41

Rhode Island

11.6

42

Maryland

11.6

43

Oklahoma St

11.4

44

Arkansas

11.3

45

Kansas St

11.3

46

Missouri

11.2

47

Indiana

11.0

48

Mississippi

10.8

49

Clemson

10.3

50

St Johns

10.2

51

Florida St

10.0

52

Texas Tech

10.0

53

Marquette

9.8

54

Central FL

9.5

55

Georgia

9.5

56

Wake Forest

9.1

57

Tennessee

9.1

58

Stanford

9.0

59

S Carolina

9.0

60

Auburn

8.9

61

Bucknell

8.8

62

San Diego St

8.5

63

VCU

8.4

64

Houston

8.4

65

VA Tech

8.2

66

GA Tech

8.2

67

Utah

8.2

68

Penn State

8.0

69

Ohio State

8.0

70

Miss State

7.7

71

BYU

7.4

72

Boise State

7.2

73

St Bonavent

7.2

74

Col Charlestn

7.2

75

Georgetown

6.7

76

Temple

6.5

77

Tulsa

6.5

78

Belmont

6.3

79

LA Tech

6.3

80

Vermont

6.3

81

Nevada

6.3

82

Syracuse

6.1

83

Fresno St

5.8

84

Loyola-Chi

5.8

85

Connecticut

5.8

86

Oakland

5.6

87

N Mex State

5.5

88

Boston Col

5.4

89

Illinois

5.2

90

Dayton

5.2

91

Iona

5.1

92

Princeton

4.8

93

Middle Tenn

4.8

94

St Josephs

4.8

95

Harvard

4.8

96

TX-Arlington

4.7

97

LA Lafayette

4.7

98

San Fransco

4.5

99

Davidson

4.4

100

LSU

4.3

101

E Tenn St

4.2

102

Nebraska

4.1

103

California

4.1

104

Mercer

4.0

105

Yale

3.8

106

Fla Gulf Cst

3.7

107

Colorado

3.6

108

DePaul

3.6

109

Elon

3.5

110

Wyoming

3.4

111

Oregon St

3.4

112

N Iowa

3.4

113

NC-Wilmgton

3.2

114

Furman

3.2

115

NC-Asheville

3.2

116

Arizona St

3.1

117

Albany

2.9

118

Illinois St

2.7

119

Missouri St

2.7

120

Samford

2.7

121

Old Dominion

2.7

122

Lipscomb

2.6

123

NC State

2.5

124

S Dakota St

2.4

125

Richmond

2.4

126

Towson

2.3

127

Ohio

2.2

128

Murray St

2.2

129

GA Southern

2.2

130

Georgia St

1.9

131

Rutgers

1.8

132

Grand Canyon

1.7

133

U Mass

1.6

134

Monmouth

1.5

135

Northern Kentucky

1.5

136

La Salle

1.4

137

UC Irvine

1.2

138

Toledo

1.1

139

U Penn

1.1

140

Washington

1.0

141

W Michigan

1.0

142

Ball State

0.9

143

Denver

0.8

144

Buffalo

0.7

145

Hofstra

0.7

146

E Michigan

0.7

147

New Mexico

0.7

148

Valparaiso

0.6

149

South Dakota

0.6

150

UNLV

0.5

151

Northeastrn

0.5

152

Memphis

0.5

153

IPFW

0.4

154

S Illinois

0.3

155

Santa Clara

0.2

156

Colorado St

0.2

157

CS Bakersfld

0.2

158

Geo Wshgtn

0.2

159

Pittsburgh

0.2

160

Utah Val St

0.1

161

Ste F Austin

0.0

162

North Dakota State

0.0

163

Pacific

-0.1

164

Bradley

-0.1

165

Arkansas St

-0.1

166

E Carolina

-0.2

167

Kent State

-0.2

168

Akron

-0.2

169

NC-Grnsboro

-0.3

170

Montana

-0.3

171

Saint Louis

-0.3

172

Troy

-0.4

173

Weber State

-0.4

174

Winthrop

-0.4

175

Wofford

-0.6

176

Utah State

-0.6

177

Geo Mason

-0.6

178

Wm & Mary

-0.7

179

Lehigh

-0.8

180

UAB

-0.8

181

Jksnville St

-0.8

182

TX El Paso

-0.9

183

Evansville

-1.2

184

Montana St

-1.2

185

Idaho

-1.3

186

Navy

-1.3

187

San Diego

-1.4

188

Wright State

-1.7

189

UCSB

-1.7

190

St Peters

-1.7

191

Colgate

-2.0

192

LA Monroe

-2.1

193

E Washingtn

-2.2

194

Hawaii

-2.3

195

Cleveland St

-2.3

196

Gard-Webb

-2.4

197

Boston U

-2.4

198

Fordham

-2.4

199

E Kentucky

-2.4

200

Indiana St

-2.4

201

IL-Chicago

-2.5

202

Liberty

-2.5

203

Columbia

-2.6

204

Manhattan

-2.8

205

Stony Brook

-2.9

206

TN State

-2.9

207

Army

-2.9

208

Niagara

-3.0

209

WI-Milwkee

-3.0

210

Drake

-3.0

211

Marshall

-3.0

212

Drexel

-3.1

213

Coastal Car

-3.2

214

Canisius

-3.2

215

James Mad

-3.2

216

NC Central

-3.3

217

IUPUI

-3.3

218

TN Tech

-3.3

219

Detroit

-3.3

220

Air Force

-3.4

221

Nebraska Omaha

-3.4

222

N Hampshire

-3.5

223

Tulane

-3.5

224

W Kentucky

-3.6

225

Duquesne

-3.6

226

Charlotte

-3.6

227

Lamar

-3.6

228

Wash State

-3.7

229

Fairfield

-3.7

230

Maryland BC

-3.9

231

Chattanooga

-3.9

232

Texas State

-3.9

233

Loyola-MD

-4.0

234

WI-Grn Bay

-4.0

235

American

-4.0

236

TN Martin

-4.0

237

TX A&M-CC

-4.0

238

Cornell

-4.0

239

N Colorado

-4.1

240

Radford

-4.2

241

Central Mich

-4.3

242

TX Southern

-4.3

243

Rider

-4.4

244

Mt St Marys

-4.6

245

North Dakota

-4.7

246

N Illinois

-4.7

247

SE Louisiana

-4.8

248

Sam Hous St

-4.8

249

Delaware

-4.9

250

Siena

-4.9

251

Bowling Grn

-5.0

252

St Fran (PA)

-5.1

253

Lg Beach St

-5.1

254

App State

-5.1

255

F Dickinson

-5.4

256

Campbell

-5.4

257

Dartmouth

-5.5

258

UC Davis

-5.5

259

Youngs St

-5.5

260

E Illinois

-5.6

261

Holy Cross

-5.7

262

Abilene Christian

-5.7

263

Portland St

-5.8

264

High Point

-5.9

265

South Carolina Upstate

-5.9

266

Loyola Mymt

-5.9

267

Oral Roberts

-6.0

268

Rice

-6.0

269

Morehead St

-6.1

270

LIU-Brooklyn

-6.4

271

Seattle

-6.5

272

CS Fullerton

-6.6

273

S Florida

-6.7

274

Portland

-6.8

275

Incarnate Word

-6.9

276

Austin Peay

-7.0

277

Cal Poly

-7.0

278

W Carolina

-7.1

279

Hampton

-7.1

280

Miami (OH)

-7.1

281

S Alabama

-7.1

282

Fla Atlantic

-7.4

283

Bryant

-7.4

284

UC Riverside

-7.4

285

Wagner

-7.5

286

Charl South

-7.5

287

S Mississippi

-7.6

288

Sacred Hrt

-7.7

289

Massachusetts Lowell

-7.8

290

Binghamton

-7.8

291

AR Lit Rock

-7.8

292

San Jose St

-7.9

293

Brown

-7.9

294

New Orleans

-8.0

295

SE Missouri

-8.0

296

Norfolk St

-8.1

297

New Jersey Tech

-8.2

298

Jacksonville

-8.3

299

TX-Pan Am

-8.3

300

Southern

-8.3

301

TX-San Ant

-8.4

302

Lafayette

-8.4

303

Rob Morris

-8.5

304

UMKC

-8.5

305

Marist

-8.9

306

Quinnipiac

-8.9

307

W Illinois

-9.1

308

Sac State

-9.2

309

Kennesaw St

-9.2

310

Cal St Nrdge

-9.5

311

Morgan St

-9.6

312

SIU Edward

-9.7

313

N Florida

-9.7

314

Alcorn State

-9.7

315

Hartford

-9.8

316

Houston Bap

-9.9

317

N Arizona

-9.9

318

Pepperdine

-9.9

319

Citadel

-10.1

320

North Texas

-10.1

321

NW State

-10.2

322

Stetson

-10.4

323

Jackson St

-10.6

324

St Fran (NY)

-11.1

325

Maryland ES

-11.2

326

McNeese St

-11.2

327

NC A&T

-11.2

328

Florida Intl

-11.3

329

Savannah St

-11.3

330

Prairie View

-11.7

331

Idaho State

-11.8

332

S Utah

-12.1

333

Nicholls St

-12.4

334

Central Ark

-12.7

335

S Car State

-12.7

336

VA Military

-12.8

337

Longwood

-12.8

338

Alabama St

-13.5

339

Chicago St

-13.6

340

Central Conn

-13.8

341

Florida A&M

-14.1

342

Maine

-14.3

343

Grambling St

-14.4

344

Howard

-14.6

345

Delaware St

-15.2

346

Beth-Cook

-15.2

347

Ark Pine Bl

-15.2

348

Coppin State

-16.3

349

Alab A&M

-17.4

350

Presbyterian

-17.7

351

Miss Val St

-18.6

Before You Go …

As a final reminder, be sure to check out the season projections we create using these 2017 college basketball preseason rankings. There’s a ton to see:

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